Environmental history is one of the most dynamic historiographic subfields worldwide, contributing to the thematic, methodologic, and epistemological renewal of history. At the heart of its programme lays the notion that human history cannot be divorced from the dynamic web of actors and forces of the biophysical environment. This implies to shed new lights on classic historiographic themes (such as empire, war), but also to open new directions of investigation (such as energy, animals, toxicity).
This seminar will introduce students to this new historiography with a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Every session will be devoted to one theme/object of this field, which we will explore through articles, book chapters and a broad range of primary sources. This will allow us to familiarize ourselves with some of the most relevant debates and authors of environmental history and its multiple intersections with other subfields of history. We will pay attention to the questions, methods, and sources mobilized, to reflect collectively on the potential and challenges of writing (and re-writing) a more-than-human history for the twenty-first century.
Bastien CABOT,Emelyn RUDE
Séminaire
English
Close reading of two documents per session. Each student will have to read closely only one book (monograph) for the book review and oral presentation for the entire semester. I expect the close reading of 2-3 additional monographs for the final bibliographic essay.
The class will be taught in both English and French but students can speak and write in their preferred language.
Autumn 2024-2025
Oral (50%) and written (50%). Every source and article will be introduced orally by a student, who will be responsible of leading the collective discussion. Introductions and discussion leadership will be worth 50% of the final grade. The remaining 50% will be based on a bibliographic essay/ multiple book review on a topic/object of choice to be delivered by the end of the semester (around 3000 words). A penalty of 1 point per day will be applied to papers delivered after the deadline.
William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness: Or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature, 1995.
Nancy Langston, New Chemical Bodies: Synthetic Chemicals, Regulation, and Human Health,' in A. Isenberg (dir.) The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History, OUP 2014: 259-281.
Georgina Endfield, Reconsidering Climate and Causality: Case Studies from Colonial Mexico. In Nature's End: History and the Environment, S. Sorlin, P. Warde (eds), Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2009: pp. 304-328.
Alfred Crosby, Conquistador y Pestilencia, in The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, Praeger 2003 (30th anniversary edition), pp.35-65.